The present invention relates to a mechanism as a device for latching of doors, door jambs or door bodies of horizontal coke oven chambers. The latching device is unlocked by the vertical traction force of rope tackles or chains and hence it requires no manual or automatic external driving and controlling device. The inventive latching device is insensitive to contamination and pollution like the one typically occurring on modern cokemaking facilities. The inventive latching device also closes coke oven chambers tightly to safely bulkhead high pressure differences between coke oven chamber and environment, thus preventing an escape of cokemaking process by-products harmful to the environment. The inventive latching device locks coke oven chambers even autonomously and thus it requires little maintenance and it is easy to operate.
Coal carbonization processes are run in horizontally charged coke oven chambers, for example, which are charged with a suitable coal to perform the cokemaking process and which are emptied and cleaned by suitable devices upon completion of the carbonization process. To this effect there are door openings on either side of the coke oven chamber in customary structures by way of which the oven is pushed by a suitable device on discharging it from one side to the other. Discharging is usually effected into coke batch cars into which the hot coke is discharged and transported to a quenching facility where the coke push is cooled and cleaned. Structures which allow for charging coke through the coke oven chamber top are also found frequently. The discharging and cleaning process is then realized through the horizontal coke oven chamber openings.
However, with all these structures, the coke oven chamber openings are closed after charging so that the coke oven chambers can be heated and pressurized. During the coal carbonization process, gaseous and vaporous products which are comprised of gases and tarry condensates evolve in the interior of the coke oven chamber. With a so-called “conventional” coke oven, these gases and tarry condensates are collected and passed on to further processing. In these cases, heating of the coke oven chambers is mostly realized from outside. Other types of construction, so-called “Non-Recovery” type coke ovens, utilize coal by-products for combustion, thus generating the heat needed for coal carbonization. “Heat Recovery” ovens, in turn, utilize the heat of combustion from coking gases by secondary facilities.
In both construction styles, the coal carbonization process frequently leads to a pressure build-up in the chamber-type coke oven which needs to be sealed towards the exterior. Since the door structure of the coke oven chamber is exposed to substantial heat impacts, this sealing is difficult to achieve because the coke oven chamber doors suffer from deformation during long operation life and therefore they do not close reliably on a permanent basis. Hence coal by-products are pressed out from the coke oven chamber in form of emissions which represent a substantial hazard to environment and operating staff. Moreover, leakages and fugitives frequently cause encrustation on external walls and doors which are hard to remove and which entail substantial expenditure on cleaning and maintenance of coke oven chambers. For this reason, the doors of coke oven chambers must be sealed and locked as tightly as possible during operation.
Therefore, a great deal of door construction styles is so configured that the actual door is comprised of a so-called plug which presses the contents of a coke oven into the oven chamber and which is retained in position by a frame. Such a plug may have a length of a few millimeters up to several decimeters and usually it is comprised of a refractory material like ceramics or fireclay. For opening and closing, the frame in which the plug is suspended is moved out from the door opening and run into a position of rest. Frequently, these plugs do have a substantial weight which is the reason why frames and suspensions are sometimes hard to insert into the envisaged closing position.
Owing to the high temperature during the coal carbonization process, the doors may become deformed so that they do not seal the coke oven chamber tightly. Moreover, the load-bearing frame structure is exposed to substantial strains and stresses during operation due to the heavy weight. To achieve a reliable sealing of the coke oven chamber interior, the door must therefore be firmly sealed and locked against the coke oven chamber wall. Therefore, the latches which tightly lock the coke oven chamber door versus the environment and keep them in the locked position against the inner pressure of the coke oven chamber are of substantial importance for the design and construction of a coke oven chamber.
Various types of construction have been proposed for the latching of coke oven chamber doors. DE 1214646 B describes a door for horizontal coke oven chambers comprised of latch hooks mounted at the oven body which proceeding from the coke oven chamber wall protrude laterally into the profile of the door and which accommodate supporting levers which are mounted on the front side to the oven door. The supporting levers are adjustable at the coke oven chamber door so as to ensure even pressing if the door has been properly adjusted. By latching the door from the front side, however, the door requires very tightly locking sealing edge devices on the sides of the door frame. Moreover, automation is only difficult to implement because the latching mechanism extends over the entire door device.
DE 3307844 A1 discloses a door device for coke oven chambers which employs a torsionally flexible door to close coke oven chambers and which compensates for deformation forces by a tightly closing sealing edge device and helically closing door latches arranged in front of the door. The ratio between door body stiffness and specific sealing edge force is kept as low as required so as to compensate for the door body deformation mainly by the locking forces and the sealing edge force. The latch bar itself is configured as a revolving lock mounted on the front side of a coke oven chamber door and pressed against a bolt mounted on the chamber frame. Each door is preferably equipped with two latch bars, but depending on deformation forces and on the door height, three latch bars may also be provided for. The sealing edge frame is elastically suspended and pressed by a resilient facility onto the chamber frame so as to constantly seal the gap existing between door and frame. The type of construction described bears a drawback in that the sealing edge frames frequently have to be reworked to ensure tight sealing, thus entailing high expenditure on maintenance. Moreover, the latching mechanism is only hard to handle and difficult to automatize.
Coke oven chambers are usually arranged in coke oven batteries or coke oven banks. Latch bars implemented on a coke oven chamber should seal the doors of the individual coke oven chambers as tightly as possible. They should lock the door firmly and snapped-in versus the coke oven chamber while being easy to handle at the same time. To minimize mechanical expenditure on the latching, it is an advantage to execute the latching mechanism simultaneously with the procedure of opening and closing. Finally, the latching mechanism should be as insensitive as possible to contamination and not get stuck by carbonization products. Besides, the latching mechanism should not excessively increase the weight of a coke oven chamber door. Another requirement exacted from the latching procedure is its capability of being easy to automatize so as to allow it to be actuated by an electrical or electronic control. It is the object to provide a latching mechanism that meets these properties. It is also an object of the invention to provide a method for a vertical opening and latching of doors, door bodies or door jambs of horizontal coke oven chambers. The method should also be autonomous by demand.